Amelia Turns One

Even though our daughter's birthday was last month and before I started this little blog I still thought it would be a great ideas to tell you all about her special birthday weekend. A weekend that was full of family, friends, cakes and lots of celebrations!

As our little lady was turning one it only seemed right to make the celebration special and hopefully she would have the perfect day. Our daughter's birthday landed on a Thursday and so we thought that because it was during the week, we would have a day to ourselves, just the three of us. So we decided to take her to our local beach, Hunstanton. Our little fish loves swimming and so we decided to take her to Oasis for lots of splashing and lots of fun. The pool was empty so we had it to ourselves, which was lots of fun. We did spend most of our time in the baby pool because it's a little warmer, so we spend the afternoon watching the little lady go down the slide whilst pretending to be worms chasing one another, that was until I scrapped my knew on the grainy floor. Soon it was time to leave the pool, we then had a walk along the promenade, ate lots of ice cream and wayyyy tooooo many doughnuts. For us, it was the perfect way to spend our daughter's first birthday. Until the weekend...

Soon enough it was the weekend and we had lots more planned for our special little lady. We invited all our family and friend over and asked them join us for a trip to the Zoo. We all bundled into our car and headed to Banham Zoo, there are not too many people that I know that don't like a Zoo! It was the perfect day for all the family. Our first venture was to the Amazing Animals presentations which takes placed througout the year, you are able to have the opportunity to go and see the presenters and animals live on stage as they give you a glimpse into the worlds of some of the most incredible creatures. The show lasted for around 30 minutes, our daughter did so well and was entertained completely for those 30 minutes! We saw so many different animals throughout the show such as serval, ring tailed lemurs, European genet, Swainson’s lorikeets, monk parakeets, kookaburra, rats, barn owl and blue & gold macaws. It’s an absolute ‘must do’ on a day out at Banham Zoo.

For me the highlight of the day had to be when we watched the 'Bird of Prey Display' situated in the heart of the zoo at the Bird of Prey Centre, you can come face to face with the magnificent bald eagle and beautiful owls.Throughout the day you are able to experience one of the most exciting ‘Birds of Prey’ displays in the UK, including up to 9 vultures flying together! During a fantastic half hour display the zoo keeper demonstrated how amazing these birds really are. However, during the show my focus was taken on the display to laugh at my husband being scared of some of the birds flapping near his head. Yes, a full grown man scared of birds.

Our next trip was to the Farm Barn, home to domestic animals from around the world. Many of these can be seen in the farm barn near to the zoo entrance. Here you will see the pygmy goats from Africa, llamas from South America, and Kune Kune pigs from New Zealand as well as many more! In the Farm Barn we had plenty of opportunities to be able to tough and feed some of the animals, which was an experience itself.

Half way through making our way around the zoo it was time to stop for some lunch and we all decided to bring a picnic, giving us all an opportunity to stop for bite to eat, have a drink before more zoo fun. Our first stop was at the Giraffe enclosure, as it was their feeding time. That was an experience because they got so close and we even managed to see a baby giraffe. Our daughter was convinced that they were our dog, Jakey but these creatures were far from a sausage dog/beagle! In a nutshell, we had an extraordinary day!

On Sunday, we had lots more family come to see our daughter on her special birthday weekend. We spend a few hours playing with her new toys, we then had to put the little lady down for a nap because she didn't go yesterday and was a little grumpy. After an hour or so she was up and ready for more birthday fun. This time we all went out for a family meal and shared some of her birthday cake, we got this one especially made for her, she adores Waybuloos! De-Li is her favourite!

Our little lady turning one was a weekend to remember! It was full of family, friends and lots of celebrations. It was so thoughtful of everyone coming over to make our little lady feel so special on her first birthday. All three of us thoroughly enjoyed celebrating our beautiful baby girl turning one, we have however, set the bar quite high for next year.